


a ticking cloak and a piece of toast

by neverwhyonlywho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, One-Word Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 19:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwhyonlywho/pseuds/neverwhyonlywho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is definitely not a morning person. The Doctor, however, definitely is. All right, so they’re not *perfectly* compatible—but they’ll work it out, one way or another. Set late in S2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a ticking cloak and a piece of toast

**Author's Note:**

> Response to moonofpoosh's "proficiency" prompt and an anon prompt for "flowers."

There were no windows to speak of in the TARDIS kitchen. There were, however, holograms of windows.

To be more specific, there were holograms of offensively bright morning sunlight streaming through holograms of windows, with an accompanying and appropriately offensive audio track of bird-songs. Rose groaned when she shuffled in, shutting her eyes against the onslaught.

Blindly, she palmed for the control panel on the wall past the archway; she patted about until she found the dial she wanted and promptly gave it a hard turn counterclockwise, adjusting the sunlight to something more closely resembling the soft pink of pre-sunrise Earth.

She pressed a button below the dial, hoping to turn off the bird noises too, but it only switched the audio track to ‘Peer Gynt.’

She growled profanities at it, which accomplished exactly nothing.

“Hit ‘er twice more, love,” said the Doctor. The first push after that seemed to combine both the birds and the orchestra at once, and that was entirely too much dawn chorus for her, thank you; the second push returned the room to silence, and she sighed in appreciation.

"Rose Tyler," the Doctor said, a frying pan in one hand and three eggs in the other, "you are absolutely, definitely not a morning person."

"Ungh," she agreed.

"Coffee?"

" _Ungh_ ," she agreed.

***

On the whole, being alive and not a morning person was still a pretty good problem to have. She felt as if they’d only crawled in just before dawn, though, never mind how relative time was; once more, they’d narrowly escaped death _and_ gotten themselves covered in goo for their trouble.

But the ticking cloak had a good twenty minutes to spare. Not a close call at all, really, so maybe they escaped death broadly, not so much narrowly. In any case, the novelty hadn’t worn off quite yet. Plus the adrenaline…so.

So they may have stumbled giddy through TARDIS hallways, huddled together in invisibility under a giant ticking blanket, if for no other reason than that they could.

So she may have ended up pressed and gasping against the door of the scullery with a fistful of brown hair and a cheeky Time Lord smile finally, _finally_ curving against her neck.

So her hands might still be tingling with the feel of him. Her hands, and the nip-marks on her shoulder, and—

"I'll tell you two very important things, Rose."

She looked up from the coffee she’d been contemplating. He wasn’t chipper—she’d have throttled him if he was, honestly—but he was offensively…awake. Must be that Time Lord physiology, needing less sleep or something. Entirely unfair.

“What’s that?”

“How to cook eggs,” he began, “and how to get up early.”

“Oh, this, I’ve got to hear.” She took another long sip, letting the coffee warm her from the inside out. “I always burn them.”

He was polite enough not to say ‘I know,’ but judging by the way he kept his back to her as he poked at his work on the stove, he was likely thinking it.

Instead, he said: "The secret to great eggs is _really_ low heat. Lets the proteins denature nice and evenly."

Rose squinted one eye, waving away his offer to get into technical details. “What, no jiggery pokery?”

“Nope. That comes later, with the eating. When you're cooking, it's just patience. Let it simmer for a good long while.” There was something, there in his voice, that made her look up again. She caught just a glimpse of him in profile as he moved; there was a secret sort of a smile on his lips, nearly held in check—nearly...but not quite.

Simmer, indeed.

“No wonder I always burned my eggs,” she said dryly.

His smile turned into a grin, a _big_ grin, brilliant and cheeky. "Well, see how you like these." He took a plate from the counter and slid it in front of her. Two eggs and toast. "You can tell me if it was worth the wait."

Bloody eggs. They were really having this discussion over bloody eggs like bloody children.

"It was," she said, locking eyes with him, not even looking down at her breakfast. "Worth it."

He hesitated, just for a moment, half of a heartbeat spent looking completely busted.

"Don't know that you can say that without having tried them first." He nudged the plate toward her with his index finger, arching a brow at her.

"Wasn't talking about the eggs and neither were you." She lifted both brows at him in reply, taking another casual sip of her coffee. Well—she attempted casual, anyway. Probably didn't quite manage it.

Silence hung between them for one moment, two, three, and then the corners of her mouth quivered with the giggle she was holding in, and that was it—they burst out into laughter together, embarrassed and pleased.

"We're rubbish at this, aren't we?" He beamed at her, leaning over the countertop, chin propped up on his hand.

"Completely," she agreed.

He tucked a few yellow strands back behind her ear, giving the lobe an affectionate tug. "Eat. Your food's gonna get cold."

She picked up her fork and saluted him with it.

The eggs, in the end, were quite good—she took her time with them, watching the Doctor's back as he finished up in the kitchen. He hadn't bothered with the pinstripes this morning, and even his white shirt seemed to have been an afterthought, cuffs unbuttoned and collar all out of sorts. Nearly as bad as his hair—not that Rose minded. That mess was her doing, after all, and there was nothing wrong with admiring her own work. Not when it looked this good.

"You forgot the second thing," she said between her last bites of toast. "How to get up early."

"Oh, right!" He flashed her another brilliant smile, set down the dishes in his hand and turned to face her, leaning back against the countertop. "There's a night-blooming flower on the fifth moon of Callux Prime. It's got aromatic compounds in it that smooth out the transtemporal differential. Only place in the universe where a flower has that kind of property. Probably has something to do with the fact that the moon was spat back out of a black hole under suspicious circumstances, but..." He scratched his cheek, frowning. "Anyway, keep one of them in your room and you'll pop out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every morning, no problem."

“Doctor,” she smiled, catching her tongue between her teeth. “Are you asking me out on an adventure?”

“It might be dangerous,” he said thoughtfully.

“It sounds like a terrible idea.”

“It does,” he agreed.

“But then, all the best adventures do,” she pointed out.

“Oh yes.” He grinned in delight, and she grinned to match him without a second thought.

****

It was definitely a terrible idea.

 _Fantastic_ adventure, though.

****

To the Doctor’s horror, it only took him one night in Rose’s room to discover his violent allergy to the pollen of _Calluxipentus temporalis_.

The next day, when Rose finally got him to stop sneezing, it came to pass that a compromise was reached: there would be no timey wimey plants allowed on the TARDIS, but there would be absolutely no alarm clocks, either.

(She may have also got him to ban Peer Gynt from the onboard music library, but—fine print, shmine print.)

And if he still sniffled anytime he came within a hundred meters of her room even after the plant was gone, well, there was a solution for that, too.

“Don’t really wanna be alone, Doctor.” She squeezed his hand, not quite able to look him in the eye—everything was still too new, too fresh for that. And she knew she was being about as subtle as a brick, but…

“Come stay with me, then?”

…well, so was he.

Not that she minded.


End file.
